Lake County Recycles with Care

Recycle with Care Tip: When in Doubt, Keep It Out

You may have heard the recycling advice “When in doubt, keep it out.” This little reminder is important—but why?

When a recycling bin is filled with a certain percentage of contaminated items, recycling companies are no longer able to use that load to make new items. Then the companies that buy these items for recycling reject the entire bin. The only thing left for Lake County to do is to dump that bin into the landfill.

Contamination doesn’t have to mean dirty items. It can also mean the wrong kind of items. Here are some examples of contamination:

Metal lids in the Glass container

Steel cans in with aluminum

Paperboard in the Mixed Paper bin

Plastic in the paper

Diapers, needles, Styrofoam in the Plastic bin

Pyrex or other non-container glass in the Glass bin

Leftover milk in milk jugs

Grease on pizza boxes

You get the point! Tossing in an item that you hope can be recycled is called aspirational recycling. While the intent is good, aspirational recycling can cause a large number of recyclables to be thrown away.

Please watch C4Leadville.org for information on how to recycle with care, or ask a member of the Recycling Team at the Lake County Landfill. And when in doubt, leave it out!

Recycling at the Community Field and on CR 10 are back!! Please help keep these clean of trash and contamination. If you see someone putting the wrong item in the bin consider educating them.

Thank you Lake County Public Works! And nice job on the new concrete pad!